


The Missing Nin's Apprentice

by lilbabybirdie



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, Naruto
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26257243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilbabybirdie/pseuds/lilbabybirdie
Summary: To be clear: Tsuna never wanted to be a ninja.
Relationships: Reborn & Sawada Tsunayoshi, Sawada Tsunayoshi & Uzumaki Naruto, Sawada Tsunayoshi & Vongola Tenth Generation Guardians
Comments: 18
Kudos: 127





	The Missing Nin's Apprentice

When the Sky Village fell, Sawada Iemitsu collected his pregnant young wife and fled to Konohagakure hoping to bargain for sanctuary. It came, but at a steep price; no ninja village takes kindly to traitors after all, and Iemitsu had precious little to bargain with. In the end, he promised them three things. First, any and all relevant knowledge of his now destroyed village, as the Hokage demanded it. Second, for his chakra coils to be sealed and discontinue his career as a ninja. Last, and this condition he never confided in his wife, the oath that his child would become a Leaf ninja and serve Konoha until his dying breath.

The last condition, Iemitsu thought privately to himself as the interrogation department escorted him back to his worried wife, would be the easiest to fulfill. Little kids loved ninja, especially when they grew up in ninja villages. He’d begged his father to let him become one. With some gentle shoves in the right direction, Tsunayoshi (for he’d decided that would be his son’s name, and it would be a son, he could feel it) would fall all over himself to become a ninja.

Iemitsu was right about a great many things. Razor sharp observation skills and a frighteningly accurate intuition were what made him such a formidable intelligence agent back when he’d still served the Village Hidden in the Sky. But, as he started his new, civilian life in the Leaf Village, they mostly just meant he never admitted he was wrong.

—

Tsuna hated the Academy.

It should have been clear to anyone with eyes that he wasn’t suited for it. Despite being short, and scrawny for his age, he managed to trip all over himself no matter what he was doing. Just seeing anatomy charts made him cringe and feel ill. He never spoke to his classmates, but when the teacher called on him he stuttered his way through answers that were always, always wrong. He didn’t belong there and the other kids knew it.

They knew it from the way he could never shape his hand seals quite right. They knew it from weapons practice, and really, who thought handing him a sharp object and telling him to throw it would end well? They knew it from the way he’d scramble to hide test papers the teachers passed back, face burning with shame.

And yet, despite all that, he didn’t fail. His teachers never took him aside and told him gently that he should consider another career path, perhaps as a janitor? His parents were never contacted, never told that their son just wasn’t cut out to be a ninja and they should withdraw him from school. How did he keep being shuffled into more and more advanced lessons, when he was literally the worst in class?

Well, not quite the worst.

“You just watch, dattebayo! I’m going to be Hokage one day!”

Tsuna cringed as the rest of his classmates snickered, lined up against the wall for jutsu practice. Uzumaki Naruto’s attempt at a bushin jutsu had blown up in his face yet again. It never got any easier to watch.

“That’s why he got held back last year, I’m sure,” Tsuna heard Miku say further down the line, barely muffled by her hand.

“He’s delusional!” Daichi said loudly. Daichi thought he was very important because his mom worked in the torture and interrogation department. Even though he could be just as obnoxious as Naruto, he still had more friends than the other boy. Tsuna sometimes wondered if it was because Naruto was a year younger than the rest of them. But mostly he just supposed that it was because Naruto was the worst of them, and everyone felt better looking down on him. It was the same with Tsuna, who was just as friendless but quiet enough that no one felt like going out of their way to bully him.

By contrast, wherever Naruto sat there was a circle of empty seats around him.

“Sit down, Uzumaki, that’s quite enough!” the instructor said. Head down, the boy slunk back to his seat. Tsuna bit his lip as he passed. “Miku, you’re up next.”Miku’s henge got sensei’s jaw slightly wrong, and her bushin was just a hair shorter than it should be, but sensei praised her “perfect execution” anyway.

“Alright Tsunayoshi, you’re up.”

Throat tight with nerves, Tsuna walked to the front of the class and prepared to fail.

—

“My henge was perfect.”

Tsuna hesitated in the doorway. Behind him, the last one in the classroom, Uzumaki Naruto was muttering to himself. He did that a lot, Tsuna had noticed. Maybe because everyone ignored him anyway.

“The eyes, the height, the hair- I should have passed!” Tsuna turned to see Naruto fisting his hands in his hair, face scrunched in upset frustration.

His mouth opened before he could think better of it. “The nose.”

Naruto jerked upright, blinking at him. “Wha-?”

“The nose,” Tsuna said, shifting uncomfortably, “you had sensei’s nose a bit longer than it really is. And his ears a bit lower.”

Naruto’s ears reddened. His nose started to scrunch up, defensive. “I’d like to see you do better- You didn’t pass either-!”

“You should have.”

Naruto’s mouth snapped shut.

Tsuna dragged his toe across the ground, eyes lowered. “Lei got the ears wrong too. And Daichi had his nose and his eyes totally off, yet he still passed them both. He should have passed you.”

The classroom was silent. The moment stretched out long, the longest Tsuna had ever heard Naruto remain quiet, and eventually he risked looking up.

There were tears streaming down the other boy’s face, but he looked at Tsuna like he’d hung the moon.

—

Tsuna never had a friend before. Maybe it was a bad idea to start with the boy everyone in class hated, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Not when Naruto sat with him at lunch and hung out with him after school, talking his ear off about everything under the sun. Not when they trained together (for a given value of training, on Tsuna’s part). Naruto helped him with his hand seals while Tsuna helped him with reading and writing. Over and over again, Tsuna was amazed just how determined Naruto was. From dawn to dusk, the only thing Naruto seemed to do besides eat and pull the occasional prank was train. Never in his life had Tsuna wanted anything with that kind of zeal.

“I’m going to be Hokage!” Naruto proclaimed, fist hitting the wood training board. The bandages on his knuckles were turning red. “So I gotta get strong!”

Tsuna winced as fists met wood again. He couldn’t understand the sentiment. He’d never wanted to be a ninja, didn’t get why anyone would. Naruto was a sweet kid, underneath all the bluster. It was hard to imagine him slitting people from belly to throat the way their instructors told them to. It was hard to imagine anyone in class doing that.

When his fist next hit the board, the bandages tore.

“That’s enough, Naruto-kun,” Tsuna said, stepping closer. “Let’s get your hand re-bandaged and call it a night.”

Naruto pouted, but didn’t complain the way he sometimes did. Tsuna wrapped the bandages slowly, taking extra care to be neat, because he knew if he didn’t they would just fall apart sooner.

When he finished, he looked up to see a blinding grin. “Thanks a bunch, Tsuna! See you tomorrow!”

—

Final exam day. Tsuna was in a cold sweat, as usual, and he couldn’t look his instructor in the face as he awaited judgment. He knew he had failed. His kawami justu was lackluster. His bushin barely had enough chakra to function. HIs henge was only right because he’d practiced it so much with Naruto, who was determined to get at least one jutsu perfect.

“Sawada Tsunayoshi… you pass.”

Tsuna’s head shot up, mouth agape. He couldn’t be-! But the instructor wasn’t looking at him.

Eyes fixed over his shoulder, mouth in something close to a sneer, sensei congratulated Tsuna on becoming a genin and handed him his forehead protector. Chancing a glance behind him, it didn’t take long to spot Naruto’s devastated face.

—

Tsuna hated being a genin possibly more than he hated the Academy. The first few weeks weren’t so bad; his jounin sensei had them doing D-rank missions, almost soothing in how menial they were. Tsuna didn’t mind weeding a garden or two, taking trash to the dump. If this was all being a ninja was, he could maybe come to enjoy it.

But then an urgent mission request came in, a B-rank, and sensei decided to bring them along. They weren’t allowed to interfere, or even be near the action, but it would give them a taste of what the procedure was like.

Tsuna thought, privately, that sensei was just getting sick of Daichi and Suzune complaining about D rank missions.

For two days they travelled at a run towards the southeast border of Fire Country, and it damn near killed Tsuna. Even his teammates were looking worn down when they got there. Sensei smiled, told them to set up camp, and promptly disappeared to scout.

Then the mist rolled in.

Tsuna shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself. He’d been trying to keep his pack as light as possible, so he’d left out a jacket and now he was regretting that dearly. It was so much colder here than in the heart of Fire Country. The sun had set just a few hours ago, and already the night air had numbed his skin and sunk into his bones. He’d wanted to build a fire, but Daichi had argued against it, saying any enemy ninja would see it a mile away. Suzune had agreed, and given him a look that made him want to collapse into himself.

In hindsight, though, Tsuna didn’t know why they bothered with the secrecy. Any enemy ninja would hear Daichi and Suzune arguing from miles away.

“I’m saying we should go after him!” Daichi said, gesticulating wildly. “We’ll be missing all the action at this rate!”

“Sensei said to stay here,” Suzune said, chin tilted up defiantly. Her ghostly Hyuuga eyes seemed to drip contempt. “Besides, there won’t be any so-called action. It’s just a scouting mission. Sensei’s supposed to look for signs of the enemy nin, _not engage,_ and report back.”

“Yeah, but did you see the bingo book entry on the guy we’re supposed to be looking for?” Daichi rubbed his hands together, maybe feeling the cold as much as Tsuna. “He’s, like, SSS rank! No way something exciting won’t go down!”

Suzune’s eyes narrowed. “You mean something exciting like him trying to murder our sensei? Or possibly detecting us all and compromising the mission?”

“Guys,” Tsuna spoke up hesitantly, wanting them to quiet down but uncertain how to say it.

“Oh shut up, Dame-Tsuna,” Daichi said, not even looking at him.

Tsuna shrunk into himself again, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. Shouldn’t sensei have been back by now? Tsuna thought he was just going to scout out the area, not take off on the main part of the mission. Surely he would have at least explained what he wanted his students to do while he was gone?

Though near the border of Fire Country, they were still deep in the massive forests the land was known for. The silhouettes of trees loomed out at them through the mist. The leaves above them grew so thick it was impossible to see the sky. Tsuna had never been anywhere so dark before.

Sensei should have been back by now, he knew with startling certainty. Something had gone wrong. One by one, his hairs seemed to stand on end. Something was wrong.

He scanned the outskirts of their campsite closely, until his eyes snagged on a certain spot. He couldn’t quite explain it. It was like a barely crooked picture frame, or coming home to a light on when you know you’d left it off. One patch of air was slightly different than the others, and running on nothing but Academy instinct, Tsuna did the only thing he’d been taught to do in such a situation.

He raised his arms, put his hands together, and whispered, “Kai!”

Suzune and Daichi shut up.

Looming out of the mist around their campsite was a tall, dark-cloaked man with a large green lizard draped around his neck. He looked just like his Bingo book entry, from the cocky smirk to the abyss black eyes. Tsuna froze. The man took a step forward.

Daichi stumbled to his feet, taking off into the woods behind them faster than Tsuna had ever seen him run before. The man raised his right hand, two fingers pointing Daichi’s way. Suzune intercepted him with a snarl, Byakugan charged and palms ready. The man sidestepped her easily and delivered a swift blow with his left hand. His right fired some kind of bright light at Daichi’s fleeing back.

Suzune crashed to the ground by Tsuna, whole body limp, and, trance now broken, Tsuna scrambled to check her pulse.

The cold metal of a kunai pressed against his neck.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to take your eyes off an enemy until you’re sure they’re dead?” the man ( _Reborn, SSS Rank, flee on sight_ ) whispered in his ear. Tsuna couldn’t breath. He was going to die here. His teammates were going to die here, because he couldn’t get them to quiet down, because he didn’t tell them about their watcher before forcing him to act, because he was too weak to defend them. Their sensei was probably long dead.

The man yanked him up roughly by his collar, kunai still steady at his neck. Tsuna gave a squeak as he was turned around to face the man.

“You’re an idiot,” Reborn said conversationally. “Still, it’s not every day someone manages to detect Leon’s genjutsu. You’re not an Uchiha, are you?”

He forced Tsuna’s chin up, tilting his head this way and that, abyss black eyes boring into Tsuna’s. “No, no doujutsu. You’ve just got some especially keen eyes.”

Tsuna had been in loads of hopeless situations before, a million unfortunate coincidences conspiring to make his life as unpleasant as possible. But, looking back on it in the years to come, what truly sealed his fate was the moment when a sinister smile crawled its way up Reborn’s face and, with a lethal gleam in his eyes, the madman declared, “I could use that in a student.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's been so long since I've been in the Naruto fandom, names were tripping me up so much. I was torn between Japanese and English names for like everything ToT. Have not seen past the Pain arc but I've heard some wild shit. I think the Naruto verse is one of the worst ones Tsuna could end up in lol  
> Constructive criticism is welcome! Also tag suggestions?


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